The Importance of MFT for Energy Companies

The Energy Industry Is Moving at Light Speed

Today’s energy and utility companies face a number of evergreen issues, from adhering to mandatory regulations and cybersecurity standards, to being at a higher risk of data breaches, the industry is constantly weathering a turbulent and rapidly accelerating environment. 

To combat these risks and comply with regulations at a higher wattage, utilizing a secure file transfer solution like Fortra’s Globalscape Enhanced File Transfer (EFT) can be a game changer. Read on for a look into some of the challenges energy companies are facing and how Globalscape EFT can help.

Challenge #1: Compliance 

As the energy industry continues to grow greener, more sustainable, and more advanced at a high-speed rate, it has become subject to many regulations. 

When it comes to addressing regulatory compliance, many energy companies have had to rethink their approach. This is due to factors like technological changes in operational functions, an increase in demand for clean renewable energy and energy-efficient solutions, and heightened consumer awareness. 

It is now common for energy companies to provide energy efficiency reports, sustainability reports, or other relevant data on a consistent basis to organizations across the world. Without meeting regulatory compliance requirements and the expected cybersecurity standards, energy companies may not be able to successfully do their jobs and could put themselves at a higher risk of data breaches. The cost of non-compliance is also growing, with fines growing every year. 

The key organizations many energy companies may need to comply with and provide data to are: 

• Environmental laws and acts by state and region 
• The Sarbanes Oxley Act (SOX) 
• The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) 
• The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) 
• The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) 
• The United States Department of Energy (DOE) 
• The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) 
• The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) 
• The International Energy Agency (IEA) 
• The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) 

How Globalscape EFT Can Help with Compliance
Compliance is pivotal for energy companies as they are often heavily regulated. Some are even subject to routine inspections. Following regulations and enforcing compliance can help to safeguard data, detect violations, and more.

Globalscape EFT knows that data security compliance is more vital than ever and can help energy and utility companies meet a variety of security standards by providing file transfer encryption technologies, file transfer monitoring, detailed audit logs for reporting, granular user permissions, and flexible options for sending files securely.

Challenge #2: Cyberattacks 

As the energy industry has continued to expand both its infrastructure and amount of data being transferred, it has become a prime candidate for cyberattacks. 

According to a Ponemon Institute survey on the state of IT security in the energy and utilities sector, 76 percent of respondents reported having suffered at least one or more data breaches per year, with 22 percent having two or more breach incidents. The survey also reported that 69 percent of energy and utility companies believe a successful exploit on their organization is likely in the next 12 months. 

With the stakes high, many energy companies are looking to increase their cybersecurity efforts in order to proactively protect both themselves and consumers from the disastrous consequences of a data breach. 

How Globalscape EFT Can Help Protect Against Cyberattacks 
A solution like Globalscape EFT isn’t just for sending files securely between users and systems, it’s also excellent at helping to combat rising cyberattacks.

 Globalscape comes with a variety of features and modules that can be used to automate processes, ensure secure connections, track file transfer activity, and more. Here a few key features that Globalscape has that can help energy companies avoid a devastating data breach: 

• Data encryption – Globalscape can encrypt data both at rest and in transit. This extra line of defense helps to ensure that a company’s data doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. The impact of a data breach can also be limited as the data cannot be decrypted without the appropriate key. 
• File transfer automation – Energy companies can take advantage of file transfer automation to manage recurring or high-volume file transfers with the use of workflows, all while reducing or eliminating manual data processing and human error. Companies can monitor and control file movements, including sending, retrieving, and delivering data. With file transfer automation, companies can also schedule when files should be sent or retrieved between systems, users, trading partners, applications, or the cloud. Energy companies can also receive alerts when triggered events occur or if there was an error, which they can then test and debug. 
• Extensive security controls – Globalscape supports role-based security and user two-factor authentication through SFTP. This helps to keep any unauthorized personnel or dangerous hackers out of sensitive areas. 

As an extra layer of protection, Adaptive Data Loss Prevention (DLP) solutions can be of assistance too. Energy companies can minimize the risk of a data breach by automatically removing sensitive data from emails and documents as they are sent or transferred to and from the cloud. Adaptive DLP applies an additional layer of real-time sanitization to protect companies from phishing, ransomware, and other Advanced Persistent Threats.

Challenge #3: Moving Sensitive Data 

Along with complying with regulations and preventing data breaches, one of most beneficial renewable resources for energy companies is the ability to transfer sensitive and large files securely and seamlessly to those in the office, in the field, and key trading partners and/or vendors. However, this process hasn’t always been smooth sailing. 

For instance, one thing to note about energy companies is that they are typically made up of both an IT (Information Technology - i.e., those in the office) and an OT (Operational Technology - i.e., those in the field) environment. Historically, the integration of the IT and OT environments was very risky due to the potential penetration of critical OT infrastructure from the outside world. However, with the maturing of cybersecurity and digital protection solutions, most energy and utility companies have started to integrate. Despite this, the information at play is still very sensitive and the companies must be as careful as possible to keep the data between the environments secure. 

Another thing to note about energy companies is the number of vendors they often work with. For example, consider the number of different suppliers that exist in sectors like solar energy. Although it is a smaller part of the industry, companies usually work with a variety of suppliers – one for the panels, one for the support structures, one for the solar tracking, and one for the inverters. This is a lot of information that needs to be passed between quite a few different entities. The fact of the matter is that every individual third party may not share the same knowledge or understanding of cybersecurity best practices. Something like this can put the critical data of energy companies very much at risk. 

A similar situation might exist with an energy or utility company that geographically distributes infrastructure across many sites, such as hundreds of plants across thousands of miles. This may make it difficult to maintain the peak level of security across both IT and OT environments. 

How Globalscape EFT Can Help Move Sensitive Data Securely 
Globalscape is an exceptional resource and solution when it comes to the challenge of moving sensitive data securely. It is a comprehensive solution that can manage any energy company’s file transfer software, file sharing, secure FTP, and automation needs through a single interface. 

It also can connect to a wide variety of servers for exchanging data such as FTPS, SFTP, and AS2. Any company within the energy industry can use these servers to exchange data successfully and securely with external trading partners, clients, remote locations, vendors, and stakeholders – no matter how many are involved. 

Globalscape is a flexible solution that can deployed on-premises, in the cloud on programs like Microsoft Azure and AWS or MFTaaS, or within hybrid environments. Globalscape also runs easily on platforms like Linux, Windows, AIX, the IBM i, and more. 

It can even take care of any data translation needs an energy or utility company may have. With Globalscape’s assistance, data can be translated to/from a variety of popular formats without having to write cumbersome scripts or programs. 

Energy companies can also expand upon Globalscape’s capabilities and take advantage of modules like: 

• Workspaces: This allows employees to invite users to share folders and their content without IT losing governance, visibility, or control. 
• Mobile Transfer Client: This mobile app allows your employees to use their own mobile devices to access corporate data, while keeping your network secure. 
• Remote Agent: This allows companies to centralize control for automating transactions between branch offices, business partners, field agents, or other remote systems and your EFT server. 

Globalscape can even help when it comes to the challenge of securing the IT and OT environments by using MFT Agents. With MFT Agents, the IT/OT environments can connect in an automated fashion without compromising security between the layers of the infrastructure. Agents also allow the IT/OT environments to move the data along smoothly and securely to the next level. 

A Secure DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) Gateway like Globalscape’s is also another option. This enhanced reverse and forward proxy gives energy companies an additional layer of security when exchanging data with trading partners. With a DMZ Gateway, sensitive data can be kept safely inside a private network, without exposing critical IT/OT data. Files can then be shared securely with trading partners, users, clients, and vendors. 

With Globalscape’s help, energy companies are able to transfer files in an encrypted fashion to every destination without losing any of the crucial data through transit. Find out how you can start transferring data securely and meet industry regulations successfully here.